


Forest for the Trees

by FermionCat



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Voldemort Wins, Gen, Non-Linear Narrative, Rocks Fall Everyone Dies, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-24
Updated: 2019-06-24
Packaged: 2020-05-16 05:46:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19311853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FermionCat/pseuds/FermionCat
Summary: Do not go gentle into that good night.Rage, rage against the dying of the light.—Dylan Thomas





	Forest for the Trees

**Author's Note:**

  * For [aelur](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aelur/gifts).



> Special thanks to [Wolf_of_Lilacs](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wolf_of_Lilacs/pseuds/Wolf_of_Lilacs) for their long-suffering patience while alpha and beta'ing. And on their birthday, no less!
> 
> Trigger warnings in end notes.

The Mudblood is prostrated on its hands and knees, groveling into the painstakingly restored carpet of Riddle Manor’s drawing room with pathetic, wet gasps. He knows that he should be angry that the snivelling creature has so desecrated the house of his forefathers with its revolting puddle of snot and tainted blood.

Instead, he fingers his treasured yew wand with almost-giddy anticipation. The Mudblood’s worthless life will attain newfound value in death.

This is the only task for which he eschews the elderwood wand’s otherwise excellent spellwork. The Elder Wand is cold and powerful and therefore uniquely suited to him, but only the yew wand warms joyfully in his touch, as though excited to provide the singular service. The steady drip of acceptance is heady and intoxicating.

Readying himself, he breathes in deeply, inundating his decayed lungs with the phoenix feather core’s soul-tingling affability. The buoyant sensation turns him reckless: making him far too impatient to grant the transient moment due diligence. In a single, rushed breath, the lovely, wonderful feeling gushes forth.

The flash of viridian is all too fleeting.

The dirty Mudblood collapses to the richly-stained velveteen carpet, its short-lived purpose served. But Lord Voldemort only has eyes for the boy.

And as always, he is disappointed when the light fades far too quickly.

 

❦

 

The closest he had ever gotten was years past, now.

He watches, eyes narrowed, as Bella sweeps into the drawing room, the wingtips of her cloak flapping behind her and strongly reminding him of Severus. Her night-black nails are clawed into the Mudblood’s bushy brown hair, savagely wrenching the girl into tearful acquiescence.

“Look which of the ickle herokins came over to play!” She practically sings, her velvety mezzo reverberating lustrously. “Ooh itty-bitty-baby-Mudblood, this will be such _fun_!”

The Mudblood girl’s teeth are chattering, but she pushes ineffectually at his most loyal lieutenant. “Let me go. Let me _go_ , you _hag_ —”

“Now, don’t be like that, sweetums,” Bella drags the mousey Mudblood up so she can seethe directly into her ear. “I have _just_ the spell with your name on it, you see—”

“Leave us.”

Bella sighs dramatically and releases the Mudblood, who drops to the floor with a muffled, weepy sort of moan. “Yes, My Lord,” she murmurs deferentially, the deranged glint fading from her sharp features as she bows her way out of the drawing room.

Left alone with the Dark Lord, the Mudblood trembles in awe. Wisely, she doesn’t dare allow any more of her silly sounds past her lips, now paralyzed-by-fear…

(He cannot help but feel disappointment.)

“Look at me, girl.”

She shivers, but obeys with a weak little whimper of fear, averting her gaze to the wall behind him with a terrified squeak and lending credence to Bella’s taunts.

He watches with detached interest as her body goes rigid.

(And oh oh _oh_ — how she comes _alive_.)

She whirls on him, baring her teeth in a furious, noiseless snarl. He notes, distantly, that the moonlight filtering through the window glints off the enamel. Her teeth shine brightly as she tries to speak, her shallow larynx bobbing futilely. 

“What—” She manages to choke out. “What have you _done_ to him?!”

He doesn’t grace the inane question with a response. Instead, he lazily raises the yew wand, enjoying the way the little mouse has turned almost fierce in resistance, her prior terror overwritten like Wizarding Britain’s history.

She’s struggled upright in spite of her bound hands, and he stalks around her, circumspect, the yew wand trained on her forehead, savoring her prolonged panic. She frantically swings her head about, in a desperate attempt to keep one eye trained on his imposing presence. Trying, in vain, to keep the other trained on her best friend.

(He can hardly blame her. The boy is a thing of beauty.)

At last, he is directly behind her, and she has completely abandoned her attempts to keep him in sight. Instead, she stares sightlessly ahead—at the boy—her posture nostalgically straight-backed, her chin lifted high and proud.

He spares a thought for the bravery with which she faces her execution.

(The phoenix feather core is so bright, his fingertips nearly burn with its brilliance.)

The beautiful, luminous light brings the boy to sharp relief, and Lord Voldemort drinks in the sight, the Mudblood’s crumpled corpse already forgotten.

He thinks he might have seen the tiniest flicker in the boy’s dulled irises, before it fades too-quickly.

 

❦

 

Killing the other in the same fashion was a mistake.

He had hoped for a similar—no, _greater_ —result in using the boy’s other companion, who—by all accounts—is the boy’s closest friend.

Like the Mudblood, the Blood Traitor’s reverential shock at seeing the boy is effervescent.

Unlike the Mudblood, the Blood Traitor does not respond with the quiet defiance he so desired.

No. Instead, the rebellious wretch very nearly ruins the carefully-arranged display, his eagerness to waylay the Dark Lord’s plans somehow reminiscent.

(He is uncertain what, precisely, the resemblance is.)

And then the doomed wizard opens his rebellious mouth and _hisses_.

_Open_ , the Blood Traitor garbles, his accent horrendous, and Lord Voldemort is shockingly, momentarily taken aback.

Nagini unfurls from her station—her glistening scales draped attractively across the boy’s bare shoulders—and looks up, still disoriented with sleep. She makes to move towards him, and in doing so she disturbs the locket, which clinks ajar, swinging hypnotically across the boy’s naked chest.

The Blood Traitor’s expression shatters, cracked open by simultaneous recognition and despair.

“No,” he mutters to himself. “No, no, _no_ , we destroyed it, I’m absolutely _certain_ of that.”

He watches silently, a cold, detached fury mounting in his breast.

The Blood Traitor looks up of his own accord, confusion and horror warring across his freckled features. “Me’n Harry… “ He gulps _—_ finally realizing, no doubt, that he was overtly challenging the Dark Lord _—_ then heedlessly barreling on. “Me’n Harry broke it with the sword. _Beyond magical repair_. How did you... how—”

Lord Voldemort looks on dispassionately, not bothering to correct the fool’s erroneous assumption that the locket is the real thing and not a mere simulacrum of the original housing for a piece of his own precious soul.

(The cold fury has sparked aflame, nearly choking him with its rabid intensity.)

Nagini senses his souring mood and resettles over the boy hastily—in so doing, she clumsily knocks into the boy’s arm, upsetting the cup where it is hooked on a meticulously curled finger and knocking the glittering diadem _ever so slightly_ off-kilter.

He hisses, his bone-white hands flexing with the repressed need to restore the false artifacts to their proper positions, to _correct_ this insult—

The Blood Traitor startles at the soft sound, and Lord Voldemort descends upon the hapless wizard in a torrential rage, unleashed in all its awful glory—

(He does not use the yew wand. He has enough semblance of self-control to remember that he cannot— _must not_ —taint its sole purpose with his passion.)

—he does not require a wand, after all, to cast the lovingly familiar unspeakable—

And when the anger finally abates from his heaving chest, the Blood Traitor is a bloodied mess drooling vacantly upon his velvet carpet, with not a single scrap of fight left to him.

He uses the elderwood wand to vanish the husk. It is no longer a worthy offering.

 

❦

 

“You shouldn’t break your toys so quickly, My Lord.”

Bellatrix is at his side, studying the partially-completed exhibit with a query in the tilt of her head. She holds Gryffindor’s sword with reverential care, wrested at the Battle of Hogwarts from the other prophesied child’s dead-handed grip.

(Sometimes, he regrets not capturing the Gryffindor.)

He ignores Bella for the moment and issues a sibilant command. The great snake is quick to obey: slithering carefully off the boy and climbing his proffered arm. Her devoted presence soothes the aching emptiness deep within his fractured soul, nigh-constant ever since the eve of his portended victory.

Imperiously, he extends his wand arm to Bella, and she hands him the precious artifact with telepathic obedience. Goblin-forged, ruby-encrusted, and _worthy_ beyond all measure—

(The three mangled shards of his soul resonate in the close proximity, and it feels like coming home.)

What artifact could possibly be more fitting than the only treasure he had been unable to procure the first time?

He quirks his withered lips at Bella, and she flushes pleasurably at the attention.

“My dear Bella,” he croons. “Did you yourself not break his counterpart? I would have so liked to add Neville Longbottom to my collection…”

Bellatrix’s pleased blush discolors into a blotchy puce. “My Lord!” She cries. “I—”

“Yes, yes,” he cuts her off, allowing some of the ever-present rage to filter through his customary placidity. “I am all too aware of your usual excuses.”

“I am certain, however, that you were well-capable of incapacitating him for my… ah.. _later_ uses.”

Bellatrix’s complexion goes from puce to sheet-white.

Amused in spite of himself, he schools his features back to blankness and glides forward, forward, towards the boy. Tenderly, he takes the boy’s wand arm and wraps the lax hand around the hilt of goblin-forged steel. His fingertips thrill from the sensation of wholeness encapsulating his existence, and it is with difficulty that he steps back to observe the overall effect, gently brushing the boy’s unruly hair aside so that the scar is visible.

Even after all that’s happened, the scar marring the boy’s forehead is still angry and inflamed—the scarlet tissue brought to greater effect by the shimmering ruby pommel on Godric Gryffindor’s prized artifact. Satisfied, he nods. It is high time that his prize gained a more crimson palette.

At length, he turns around. Bella is still petrified, her covetousness palpable in the savage set of her downturned mouth.

(It thrills him that she, too, appreciates the beauty of what he has created in the boy’s display.)

“You see, I do so enjoy keeping trophies.”

 

❦

 

It was ever-faithful Bella who captured the little Weasley girl for him two years past, sneeringly presenting her as _Potter’s little girlfriend_.

(Enragingly, the Blood Traitor chit calls him _Tom_.)

She doesn’t quake in fear. She recognizes him and spits spite.

“I know who you are, _Tom_.”

He ignores her, ignores her presumptive usage of the hated, renounced name. He is too wild with anticipation of her imminent reaction.

He expects her to shriek in terror. He expects her to blanch in silent fear. He expects her to prostrate herself at the beauty, the sheer _genius_ of the exhibit.

Of course, she does none of those things.

Instead, she gazes matter-of-factly at the boy, her eyes hardened into shards of darkened amber.

Those glinting shards drift: from the false Gaunt ring pierced through the boy’s nose, to the great serpent coiled against his bare skin, downdowndown to the imitation diary in the boy’s lap, just barely covering his modesty.

(He thinks he sees a flicker of recognition.)

She quietly catalogues the display for a full minute, her weak, tiny frame elongated by her uplifted chin, her steadfast gaze. And when she finally speaks, her voice is sad.

“You probably don’t know this, but he saved me from your diary in my first year at Hogwarts.”

His focus snaps to her, curiousity piqued, but she blithely continues, her own attention firmly fixed on the boy.

“You were different. You were _wonderful_.”

Her voice is blank and flat in stark contrast to her words of praise, and as impassive as her countenance.

“I told you all my secrets. How I loved him. How much I wanted him to just _notice_ me.. even just once.”

She inhales, the breath stuttering—dying, really—in her throat, and for a mere instant, her quiet voice breaks.

When she starts again, she bites it out in bitterness.

“And you tricked him. Tried to kill him. Over, and over, and over.”

She tosses her head, indicating his trophy.

“He’s a _true_ Gryffindor. He pulled that sword out of the Sorting Hat and slew your bloody Basilisk.”

The sword’s ruby-red pommel glitters as though in agreement. She takes another deep, shuddering breath, before turning slowly—on the spot—to face him.

And her lithe arms are spread wide, unshed tears glittering in her eyes, not unlike a mother who once shielded her child from the worst mass-murderer in Wizarding history, armed with nothing but her own flesh—

“And now that you’ve finally gotten your revenge—”

(And he refuses to hear the rest; three times he allowed her the chance to step aside, three times he was declined, and he is merciful, but even he has limits to his patience—)

He doesn’t stop to watch the beautiful viridescence resonating and multiplying ten, hundred, thousandfold in the boy’s irises. Not this time. He is too busy fleeing the spectre of his prophesied defeat, his accusing gaze wrought with silent condemnation.

 

❦

 

Dumbledore, the doddering, proselytizing old fool, had miscalculated.

That's the singular thought in Lord Voldemort's mind as he lowers the elderwood wand in savage glee. The otherworldly viridian flash of the Killing Curse illuminates the boy's face for the briefest instant.

The boy has looked so steadfast in his fateful march through the Forbidden Forest. Marching silently, resolutely, to his own death. He giddily anticipates the look of pure shock, the startled expression that all his victims wear in their final moment of life.

Yet when the boy looks up, there is only quiet acceptance.

(It enrages him.)

He looks on with smug satisfaction as his spell conquers the boy's resistance, the ethereal glow painting the boy's resigned, dulled eyes from forest to radioactive. He knows, at a glance, that he will savor this moment forever.

And yet.

And yet, the boy dies defiantly, his back unassailably upright, his chin lifted in insubordination.

Lord Voldemort and his prophesied foe lock eyes a final time.

Years pass in an instant, too quick for anyone to note, as his already unstable soul splinters apart an unplanned eighth time, wrenched and distorted past mortal limit by his detestable act against the boy’s willing sacrifice.

And the vibrant green light fades slowly, slowly, slowly into the muted forest.

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by aelur's [beautiful piece](https://www.deviantart.com/aelur/art/Harry-and-the-horrocruxes-750547453).
> 
> Additional warnings: dehumanization, necrophilic elements (if you squint)


End file.
